


the nights are long

by SilverShepard



Category: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Sibling Incest, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 09:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15883560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShepard/pseuds/SilverShepard
Summary: Raistlin has seen too many maids in his brother's bed. Perhaps it's time that changed.





	the nights are long

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



Raistlin watched from his conjured shadows as Caramon farewelled his latest smitten barmaid. Every time, the same; his brother's booming laugh, the slap to her swaying backside, the girl's laugh grating on Raistlin's ears. That was the third this week, in as many inns. He despised himself for keeping count. 

There were advantages: his brother's incessant dalliances bought them second helpings at mealtimes, and occasionally the better beds an inn had to offer. For those, Raistlin paid with small miseries. The noise, his brother's distraction, the presence of the simpering irritants when Raistlin needed quiet. The occasional midnight departures when it turned out that the maid had brothers or an angry suitor. 

But mostly, he hated his own ridiculous, damnable jealousy that kept him nearby, watching and listening, when he could have simply left them to it and conjured illusions for coin in the barroom. 

His oaf of a brother thought that he was envious of him, that Raistlin wanted the maids for himself. It was better to let him think so, for certainly Raistlin wasn't proud of the truth. Caramon couldn't think his way out of a child's riddle—what business did a mage with Raistlin's ambitions have with someone like that? His Trials were coming closer and closer, and what use could Caramon be to him once he cast aside his student's robes?

And yet he burned, seethed with lust and jealousy, as he watched under the cover of his spell while Caramon entertained each woman. Afterward he listened and burned anew, unable to tear himself away while his brother told him every detail of his tryst, innocent of Raistlin's spying. He hid his body's inevitable and unwanted reaction under his robes, and was spitefully glad to think what the women would think of their encounters being relayed in such a way. 

Caramon thought he was doing his brother a service, letting him live vicariously through his own dalliances. He'd long since given up on trying to clumsily engineer encounters between Raistlin and his girls. He'd tried, but had seen the futility of it eventually. It was doubly humiliating, the hurt and incomprehension on Caramon's guileless face every time a woman failed to hide her look of disgust or pity when Caramon proudly introduced his brother. Caramon's choice of girls didn't like Raistlin—as if they would, when he stood next to his brawny brother. Raistlin's embarrassed rage every time Caramon tried to be kind in this way eventually made it through his skull. He stopped trying, but he didn't stop his own encounters. For Raistlin, it was a torment and a blessing in one, to watch and listen and never touch. 

Tonight was more of the same. This inn was like any of a hundred before it, and this girl like all her sisters as she wriggled off of his brother. She sighed happily and pulled her clothes straight, kissed Caramon, played at ducking his swat to her rear, and giggled her way out of their room for the night. Caramon stretched contentedly on his bed, smiling foolishly at the ceiling. 

Raistlin took more than a little pleasure in dropping his cloaking spell more suddenly than usual, startling his brother with how close he stood. 

"Raist! I thought you were still in the barroom! Where did you come from?" Raistlin smiled slightly and waited a beat. Another. Then Caramon sat bolt upright in alarm. "You were watching?"

"Such shock, from someone who was just waiting to spill every detail. I thought I'd save your breath," Raistlin said, amused. 

Caramon flushed and looked away. "Of course I'd tell you. And I don't mind, you know I don't. It's just a bit embarrassing, you watching like that." Another two beats passed and Raistlin could see the penny drop. "This wasn't the first time, was it?" 

The mage smiled. "Oh, no, brother. You know how important it is that I keep practicing my spells. You provide me with an excellent opportunity."

He brother sighed and reached out to him. "Come and lay with me, and I'll tell you all about it anyway."

Raistlin took his hand, feeling dwarfed by the sheer size of his brother as he often did. They lay against each other on the narrow straw mattress, and Raistlin clenched his teeth in anger at the lingering scent of the woman on Caramon's skin. He wanted, suddenly, to wipe it away with his own presence. And why not? Who was to know, and if they did, what did Raistlin care for what others thought? Yes, why not?

"Why don't you show me instead, my brother?"

Caramon turned to look at him with wide eyes. "Raist? What do you mean?"

"No girl is ever going to want to do the things with me that you do, night after night. I don't really know how it feels, when you try to tell me about it."

Caramon drew back. "But—"

Raistlin hushed him. "Just like when we were small, at bath time. Nothing so very much more than we have always been to each other, is it?"

"I...suppose not, but—"

"You've always been my strength, my brother. Would you refuse me this one thing I cannot do for myself?"

Caramon looked stricken, and clasped Raistlin's cold hand. "Oh, Raist. Of course not. If that's what you really want."

Raistlin looked at him, watched as his brother's uncertainty leeched away under Raistlin's steady gaze. Others called it unnerving, but Caramon had never had any trouble meeting his eyes. Caramon never had any trouble deferring to Raistlin at all, even, it seemed, to this. 

"Show me," he murmured, bringing their joined hands to rest on the hardness between his legs. 

And Caramon, not breaking their locked gaze, did.

~~

That was the first night his brother's hand brought him off, and if there was never anyone else for either of them Raistlin would be pleased. He'd suffer the maids if he must, for the way their favour made the brothers' purse stretch further, but watching behind his cloak was a game now, a show for two of them. 

Caramon had protested, that it was different now that he _knew_ that Raistlin watched, that it wasn't fair to the women, but Raistlin saw the flush it brought to his cheeks. His noble brother liked him to watch and didn't want to like it, and it was easy, easy to lay out his own reasons why it wasn't wrong at all, easy to show Caramon he needn't feel guilt over it. 

And then after, when Raistlin's skin shone gold and his body threw off unnatural heat beneath its red robes, and his eyes saw nothing but ruined flesh - even then, even through Caramon's unabated pain at that cruelest part of the Test - even then, they lay together. 

By then Caramon was so used to pressing close to him, to giving and receiving pleasure of one another late into the night, that there was no real question of stopping. Not even with the terrible memories between them. 

And when they parted, and then met again with Raistlin's robes now dipped in midnight, still they lay together. By then Raistlin had taught himself to love death, to caress the bleached bone his lover became in his sight. 

And Caramon whispered to him how he'd missed Raistlin's golden skin, and his beautiful hair, and they lay quiet together and dreamed.


End file.
